The AP is known for having some fairly unconventional tactics toward the use of their content online. Sure, a company should be concerned with how their content is being used online… but how far is too far?
Do you agree with the AP’s new strategy? Tell us.
A new tactic, that the AP is currently employing, is one that will surely rub some people the wrong way. The AP is now charging individuals if they quote 5 words or more from any article. For those of you wondering, 5 words will set you back $12.50… that’s an outlandish $2.50 per word! (You can see the pricing details below for each group: profit, educational and non profit.)
Curious how the “quote purchasing” process works? It goes as follows:
1.) Copy and Paste Excerpt
2.) Choose the pricing
3.) Link to site where content will be posted
4.) Payment
Sure, the process is simple… but who’s going to use it? No small web publisher is going to pony up $2.50 per word just to quote a line from an AP article. Do you agree?
Direct linking and quoting are common practice around the web. So why does the AP feel the need to charge $2.50 per word for it? Should fair use come into play? Let us know what you think.
Side Note: Murdok Inc. CEO, Rich Ord, pointed out that Danny Sullivan was the originating source for this story.
On his Daggle post, How Mashable & Hacker News Ripped Off My Newspaper Story, Danny states:
“Back in May, my Do Newspapers Owe Google “Fair Share” Fees For Researching Stories? highlighted how the AP charges $12.50 to quote 5 words of a story. It’s all there, in the gory details.”
Pete Cashmore, CEO at Mashable, commented on Danny’s article stating that, “Mashable wrote the story based on the Hacker News thread that links directly to the AP pricing page, and there’s no way to see from that source that Danny was involved in bringing the story to the fore.”
Ironically, when this article was first written, Mashable was linked to as the main source with no mention of Danny… we just wanted to clarify.
